August 2013Peanut and Sass (5, 3) and their cousin, Fro (3). The girls told us the story of the Goodbye Chicken on a Sunday morning after their first trip down the aisle as flower girls. This short tale–and subsequent story arc (as the adventures of the Goodbye Chicken are frequently used to coax picky eaters through dinner at our table)–has stayed with us ever since. The call and response at the end leads to giggle fits every time.

The Goodbye Chicken once lived in a house made of corn. He was, and still is, hungry all the time. So hungry that he ate his own house and now he just walks around town all day looking for snacks. He carries a ketchup bottle in a belt around his waist because…well… everything tastes better with ketchup, doesn’t it?

There is a raccoon that lives on the top of a telephone pole. Silly to live on a pole, you might think. But this raccoon knows what she’s doing. She needs a safe place to sleep during the day, a place that is far from the busy houses and yards below. The pole is high, a mile high in raccoon distance (there are 10 human feet for every 1 of a raccoon).

There once was a kitten who lived in a cave so that no one would bother her, and she could have lots of time to have lots of big ideas. When she grew up, she came out of the cave and became the Queen of the World.

The kitten roamed the forest lonely, looking for adventures. She was the only one of her kind on Earth, sent to this strange planet when her parents thought it was no longer safe on her home moon. She resembled a cheetah, but was mostly pink with green spots. Her color was not the only thing that made her different. Her ears. They were really special.